The Equinox (Volume I, Number VI)

THE EARTH be strong and comely, and the blessing 01 the Most High shall be upon you. Then let your grasp relax in the satiety 01 death, and your weight shall cumber the earth, and the little children of the earth shall make merry with you until the rose strike its root into your breast. Then shall your body be one again with the Mother, and your soul one with the Father, as it is written in the Book 01 the Law. All this have I been taught by her whose purity and strength are even as Earth’s, chosen before the foundation of Time. Lioness with lion, may we walk by night among the ruins 01 great cities, when, weary with happiness too great even 101 our immortality, we turn from the fragrance and fertility 01 Earth. And at the sunrise return where the peopled valleys call us; where, bronzed and buoyant, our children sing aloud as they drive home the spade. Glory be to the Earth and to the Sun and to the holy body and soul of Man ; and glory be to Love and to the Father 01 Love, the secret Unity of things! Glory be to the Shrine within the Temple, and to the God within the Shrine, to the Word and to the Silence that bore it unto Him that is beyond the Silence and the Speech! Also thanksgiving in the Highest for the Gift of all these things, and for the maiden in whom all these things are found, for the holy body and soul 01 man, and for the sun, and for the earth. AMEN. FRANCIS BENDICK.